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ChickenBones: A Journal /
2005 Arabian Drive / Finksburg, MD 21048-- I became
aware of Rudy Lewis’ labor of love a few short months ago during a visit
to Kalamu ya Salaam’s e-drum listserv. As soon as I saw the title
of the journal I knew it was about Black folks, and the power of the
written word. A quick click took me into a journal that’s long on
creativity, highlighting well-known, little known, and a little known
writers, and commitment to the empowerment of Black folks. I contacted
Rudy to ask if he’d consider publishing some of my work. His response
was immediate, and a couple of days after I’d forwarded some poems to
him—they were part of ChickenBones. What I didn’t know was that
this journal has been surviving for the last five years with very little
outside financial support. . . If
we want journals like this to “thrive” we need to support them with more
than our website hits, praise, and submissions for publication
consideration.

Seven ways mobile phones have changed
lives in Africa—Tolu Ogunlesi—14 September 2012— Today NITEL
is dead, and Nigeria has close to 100 million mobile phone
lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms market. . . . Across the rest of the continent the
trends are similar: between 2000 and 2010, Kenyan mobile phone
firm Safaricom saw its subscriber base increase in excess of
500-fold. In 2010 alone the number of mobile phone users in
Rwanda grew by 50%, figures from the country's regulatory agency
show. . . .
Today the next frontier for mobile use in Africa is the internet..
. . . Last October, for the first time ever, the number of
Nigerians accessing the internet via their mobiles surpassed the
number of desktop internet users. . . . Most of
those devices will be low-end Nokia phones, tens of millions of
which have already been sold on the continent. The more
expensive "smartphones" are however also increasing in
popularity, as prices drop. . . .. Google, for its part, plans to sell 200 million
of its Android phones in Africa and it is estimated that by 2016
there will be a billion mobile phones on the continent. In 2007,
President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, said: "In 10 short years, what
was once an object of luxury and privilege, the mobile phone,
has become a basic necessity in Africa."

Ghana VP sworn in hours after president's death—Francis Kokutse—24 July 2012—ACCRA, Ghana — President John Atta Mills' election victory secured Ghana's reputation as one of the most mature democracies in West Africa, a position further solidified Tuesday when the vice president took over only hours after the 68-year-old president died five months before finishing his first term. John Mahama's swift inauguration underscored Ghana's stability in a part of the world where the deaths of other leaders have sparked coups. "We are deeply distraught, devastated as a country," Mahama said after his swearing-in ceremony, where he raised the golden staff of office above his head.—wral / John Dramani Mahama / My First Coup d'État and Other True Stories from the Lost Decades

More deliberate confusion. Khaddafi's
"mercenaries" are really members of his ill-conceived
Pan African Brigades, largely made up of Sudanese,
Chadians, Congolese and others as part of his program to
create a United States of Africa by organizing the
African militaries first. I have long argued that
organizing the militaries first, giving precedence to
the military the way ZANU did in Zimbabwe, was
dangerous.—Jean Damu

Though the colonies of sub-Saharan Africa began to claim independence in the
late 1950s and ’60s, autocratic and capricious leadership soon caused initial
hope to fade, and Africa descended into its “lost decades,” a period of
stagnation and despondency from which much of the continent has yet to recover.
Mahama, vice president of the Republic of Ghana, grew up alongside his nascent
country and experienced this roller-coaster of fortunes. In this memoir, Mahama,
the son of a member of parliament, recounts how affairs of state became real in
his young mind on the day in 1966 when no one came to collect him from boarding
school—the government had been overthrown, his father arrested, and his house
confiscated. In fluid, unpretentious style, Mahama unspools Ghana’s recent
history via entertaining and enlightening personal anecdotes: spying on his
uncle impersonating a deity in order to cajole offerings of soup from the
villagers hints at the power of religion; discussions with his schoolmates about
confronting a bully form the nucleus of his political awakening. As he writes:
“The key to Africa’s survival has always been . . . in the story of its people,
the paradoxical simplicity and complexity of our lives.” The book draws to a
close as the author’s professional life begins. —Publishers
Weekly

"We are losing
manuscripts every
day. We lack the
financial means to
catalogue and
protect them," said
Mr Boularaf, who
recently rescued his
collection from the
rubble of a mud
building next door
that collapsed after
a rainstorm. Now a
giant, new, state of
the art library has
landed - rather like
a spaceship - in the
dilapidated centre
of Timbuktu,
offering the best
hope of preserving
and analysing the
town's literary
treasures.
After several years
of building and
delays, the doors
are finally about to
open at the Ahmed
Baba Institute's new
home - a 200 million
rand (£16,428,265)
project paid for by
the South African
government.

Black is not thought beautiful—Racial intolerance is pervasive in Lebanon and in much of the region—26 May 2012—The multilingual, fashion-conscious residents of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, fancy their city to be cosmopolitan. But not everyone is welcome. Black people and foreigners from Asia and elsewhere in the third world who make up the bulk of migrant workers are often turned away from the city’s smarter venues. Conscious of the bad blood this can cause, Lebanon’s government has warned beach clubs against barring entry on the basis of race, nationality or disability.

But racism is unlikely to be erased overnight, either in Lebanon or in many other Middle Eastern countries where blacks are routinely looked down on. Racist taunts are often heard on Egypt’s streets, and in Yemen, darker-skinned people, known as al-akhdam (“the servants”), who make up perhaps 5% of the population, are confined to menial jobs and tend to dwell in slums. In Libya rebel militias often targeted darker-skinned people from nearby countries such as Chad and Mali and from countries further south, accusing them of being mercenaries of Muammar Qaddafi. Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Chinese-Americans, among others, whisper of racist slurs both at work and on Lebanon’s streets. —economist / Discrimination against Blacks

How Ola Orekunrin became a doctor at age 21 and went on to found West Africa’s first air ambulance service——27 May 2012— Born and raised in England and of Nigerian parentage, Ola Orekunrin made history when at the age of 21 she became a medical doctor thus becoming one of the youngest medical doctors in England. She started her medical degree at the University of York and passed with flying colours. She was raised by foster white parents and went to a primary school run by Catholic nuns and her family often struggled to make ends meet. According to her, her foster mother, Dorren was a tremendous influence in shaping her life. Now at age 26, Orekunrin is founder of The Flying Doctors, the first air ambulance service in West Africa. She was prompted to start the new venture after her younger sister died of anaemia. Her sister was always in and out of hospitals and eventually died for lack of the availability of an air ambulance. But starting this venture was not easy.

She gave up a high flying job in England and her dreams of becoming the president of the British Medical Association and minister for the conservative party and moved to Nigeria. . . . “Our mission is simple— to provide the best possible standard of health care to all.” When asked if poor Nigerians would be able to benefit from her service, she said: “What I do hope is that more states will take up cover as well as making it increasingly available to the common man. I know that as Nigeria starts to take health care reform more seriously, this will begin to happen.”—cp-africa.com / Infectious Ideas Ola Orekunrin

China to Loan South Sudan $8 Billion—30
April 2012—China has agreed to loan
oil-rich South Sudan eight billion dollars
for infrastructure development, according to
Juba government spokesman, Barnaba Mariel
Benjamin. “It will fund roads, bridges,
hydropower, agriculture and
telecommunications projects… within the next
two years,” he said, giving details of a
visit this week to China by South Sudan’s
President Salva Kiir.

“Details (of the
projects) will be defined by the ministers
of the two countries and by the Chinese
firms in charge of the work,” said the
spokesman for the world’s youngest nation.
Energy-hungry China is the largest purchaser
of oil from South Sudan, which proclaimed
independence last July, and is also a
longstanding business partner of Sudan from
which it also buys oil.—AfricanGlobe
/
Modern Chinese Tanks for the Sudan

Reports: U.S. Military to Help Fight Nigerian Terrorists—David Axe—11 November 2011—The Pentagon’s shadow war in Africa could have a new front, if reports coming out of Nigeria are accurate. U.S. troops are headed to Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group that has killed up to 400 people this year in an escalating campaign of bombings and shootings. At least that’s what Nigerian military sources tell Scott Morgan, a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes under the pseudonym “Confused Eagle.” The Guardian also has the story. U.S. officials have refused to confirm the deployment. . . . Last month, President Barack Obama announced he was sending 100 U.S. advisers to help the Ugandan army track the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group in Congo. And this year the Pentagon has quietly set up a number of new bases in Ethiopia and the Seychelles to provide air support to all these operations.—Wired

Religion is the
organization of spirituality into something that became the
hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought
to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as
the framework to control their minds."
—Dr.
John Henrik Clarke

"What was or is to be gained by the designation of the
Africans into 'separate rates' by the European invaders and
colonizers? It was, and still is, a means to divide the
Africans and remove them from their cultural, scientific,
political, spiritual and ancestral heritage, thereby
enabling the colonialist slave masters from Europe to claim
them and force their own concepts of morality, law,
economics, politics, ancestral values, upon the Africans'
mind. For, without one's consciousness of the past, one
remains a virtual SLAVE to the whims of his MASTER...The
'Negro' is an example of such a phenomenon. The 'BLACK MAN'
[African] is the opposite of the NEGRO.' He is a MAN who has
retained his self-consciousness and self-respect for his
past, or one who has regained it after being forced to
accept 'NEGRO' status, due to no fault of his own."—Dr.
Yosef ben Jochannon,
Black Man of the Nile and His Family

"What became of the Black people of Sumer the traveler asked
the old man, for ancient records show that the people of
Sumer were Black. What happened to them? 'Ah,' the old man
sighed, 'they lost their history, so they died.' "—Dr.
Chancellor Williams
/ Transitional Writings on Africa

Good Riddance to the African-Hater on the International Criminal Court—Glen Ford—“He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans.”—Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, leaves the ICC at the end of this month. The entire Black world ought to say “Good riddance.” Moreno-Ocampo is from Argentina, and took office as the Court’s first prosecutor in 2003. He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans, while kissing Uncle Sam’s butt at every possible opportunity. Indeed, even as his term expires, Moreno-Ocampo continues to try to pin an ICC Marshal’s badge on the United States, even though the U.S. isn’t a signatory to the treaty that created the Court. In his last days in office, he remains determined to use the superpower to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

This, of course, would require that the U.S. commit acts of war against Sudan, in clear opposition to the will of the African Union. But, that appears to be Moreno-Ocampo’s purpose: to use the American superpower as a stick to threaten Africa.—blackagendareport

13 June 2011U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for African nations to sever ties with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and demand his removal. Speaking from a lectern where Gadhafi has often addressed African assemblies, the secretary of state acknowledged the Libyan leader’s influence in the 53-member body. But she urged African leaders to stand up for the organization’s democratic ideals and take the lead in demanding his ouster."I know it is true over many years, Gadhafi played a major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the African Union, but it has become clearer by the day he has lost his legitimacy to rule, and we are long past time when he can or should remain in power," said Clinton. In the first-ever address by a U.S. secretary of state to the African Union, Clinton called for the continent’s leaders to isolate Gadhafi diplomatically. I urge all African states to call for a genuine cease-fire and to call for Gadhafi to step aside," she said. "I also urge you to suspend the operations of Gadhafi’s embassies in your countries, to expel pro-Gadhafi diplomats, and to increase contact and support for the [rebel] Transitional National Council." Minister Farrakhan's Conference on US, NATO attack on Libya (June 15, 2011)

Clinton
Threatens
Other
African
Leaders
with
Overthrow
If
They
Back
Gaddafi!— On
Monday,
Secretary
of
State
Hillary
Clinton
extended
Gates’
shakedown
of
Europe
to
Africa’s
leaders,
instructing
a
meeting
of
the
African
Union
in
the
Ethiopian
capital
of
Addis
Ababa
that
they
must
break
relations
with
Gaddafi.
“It
has
become
clear
by
the
da...y...
that
he
has
lost
his
legitimacy
to
rule
and
that
we
are
long
past
the
day
when
he
can
remain
in
powers,”
she
said.
In
an
implied
threat,
she
told
the
assembled
delegates
that
they,
too,
might
face
overthrow
like
Gaddafi,
Egypt’s
Hosni
Mubarak
and
Tunisia’s
Zine
Abidine
Ben
Ali.
“Too
many
people
in
Africa
still
live
under
long-standing
rulers,
men
who
care
too
much
about
the
longevity
of
their
reign
and
too
little
about
the
legacy
that
should
be
built
for
their
countries’
future,”
she
said.
Vijay
Prashad—The
Darker
Nations,
Part 1
/
Vijay
Prashad—The
Darker
Nations,
Part 2
/
The
Darker
Nations:
A
People's
History
of the
Third
World
(Vijay
Prashad)

When a Job Disappears, So Does
the Health Care—
December 7, 2008—
About 10.3 million Americans
were unemployed in November,
according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The number of unemployed has
increased by 2.8 million, or 36
percent, since January of this
year, and by 4.3 million, or 71
percent, since January 2001. . .
. . Some parts of the federal
safety net are more responsive
to economic distress. The
number of people on food stamps
set a record in September,
with 31.6 million people
receiving benefits, up by two
million in one month. Nearly 4.4
million people are receiving
unemployment insurance
benefits, an increase of 60
percent in the past year. But
more than half of unemployed
workers are not receiving help
because they do not qualify or
have exhausted their benefits.
About 1.7 million families
receive cash under the main
federal-state welfare program,
little changed from a year
earlier. Welfare serves about 4
of 10 eligible families and
fewer than one in four poor
children.
NYTimes
Single-Payer Health Care Would
Stimulate Economy

Even though several Nigerian millionaires have more money than they know what to do with, they’d rather keep it to themselves than give it away. However, a Nigerian oil magnate and former defense minister, TY Danjuma just might be a different breed. The 73-year old has put over $100 million of his own money into his Charity, the TY Danjuma Foundation—making it one of Africa’s largest charities, and Danjuma, the country’s biggest philanthropist.

TY [Theophilus Yakubu] Danjuma, a retired military General was Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff in the 70s and served as the Minister of Defense during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure between 1999 and 2003. Danjuma has always been one of Nigeria’s most influential people. He was a close ally, loyalist and confidante of the late Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, who rewarded General Danjuma with an oil block. The block, which was located in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta region, was left unexploited for several years. In 2006, he reportedly sold it to China’s offshore oil company CNOOC for what Danjuma said was $1 billion. After taxes, and paying off various dues, he said was left with over $500 million—Conelle

Was DSK Stitched Up?
By Alexander Cockburn—The French are for the millionaire. The Americans
are for the maid. Among the French, three out of five think the IMF’s former
managing director,
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been framed. (Strauss-Kahn tendered his
resignation as head of the IMF May 18.) Here in the USA there’s not been a
reliable poll, but public sentiment is clearly against Strauss-Kahn, amplified
by self-congratulation that America is a nation of laws, a maid’s word as potent
as that of a millionaire, in contrast to the moral decay and deference to the
rich prevalent in France.In Parisian financial circles some charge that this
is an attack on “les juifs.” Following this line, they suggest it’s a plot by
the Muslims, presumptively eager to contrive any embarrassment to a well-known
Jew, and indeed ardent Zionist, also perhaps because the agent of Strauss-Kahn’s
downfall, the 32-year maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of a serious sexual assault—widely
identified on French and West African websites as Nafissatou Diallo—is a Muslim
from the West African nation of Guinea. (And yes, the name Diallo does ring a
bell. Amadou
Diallo (September 2, 1975–February 4, 1999) was a 23-year-old Guinean
immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four
plain-clothes members of the NYPD who fired 41 rounds at him. They were all
subsequently acquitted.) —Counterpunch
/
The King of Kahel

Strauss-Kahn's pals bid to pay off woman's kin—By Oron Dan in Tel Aviv—Friends of alleged hotel sex fiend
Dominique Strauss-Kahn secretly contacted the accusing maid's impoverished family, offering them money to make the case go away since they can't reach her in protective custody, The Post has learned. The woman, who says she was sexually assaulted by the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund, has an extended family in the former French colony of Guinea in West Africa, well out of reach of the Manhattan DA's Office. "They already talked with her family," a French businesswoman with close ties to Strauss-Kahn and his family told The Post. "For sure, it's going to end up on a quiet note." Prosecutors in Manhattan have done their best to keep the cleaning woman out of the reach of Strauss-Kahn's supporters, but the source was already predicting success for the Parisian pol's pals.

"He'll get out of it and will fly back to France. He won't spend time in jail. The woman will get a lot of money," said the source, adding that a seven-figure sum has been bandied about. While the DA's office has sequestered the maid—and is even monitoring her phone calls— her extended family lives in a village that lacks paved roads, electricity and phone lines. The average monthly income is $45, which is near-starvation, and some of her family members can't even afford shoes. . . . Strauss-Kahn, 62, remains under house arrest in a pricey lower Manhattan pad secured by his billionaire wife, Anne Sinclair. . . . In a heartless reply, Strauss-Kahn, allegedly told her, "No, baby. Don't worry, you're not going to lose your job," sources said, adding that he again repeated, "Don't you know who I am?" .—NYPost

The events in Ivory Coast have
vindicated us on our earlier assertion that Western neo- colonialist
sponsored agents in Africa that owe allegiance only to themselves
and their Western masters are ready to walk on thousands of dead
bodies to the Presidency. This is what is happening in Ivory Coast.
Africans should not only wake up, but should stand up to the new
attempts to re-colonise Africa through so called elections that are
organized just to fool the people since the true verdict of the
people would not be respected if it does not go in favour of the
Western Backed Candidates as has happened in Cote D'Ivoire and
elsewhere in Africa. What is really sinister and dangerous about the
neo colonialist threat is that they are ready to use brute force, or
carry out outrageous massacres to neutralize any form of resistance
to the Western selected President as has happened in Cote D'Ivoire.
In Ivory Coast, we know the role played by the former Colonial power
who, outside of the UN Mandate, first Bombarded the Presidential
Palace for Days and eventually stormed it through a tunnel that
links the Presidential Palace to one of the residences of their
diplomatic representative. . . .Yahya
Jammeh

Zimbabwe Prof
Arrested, Tortured for Watching Viral Vids—By Sam Gustin—25
February 2011—Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lecturer at the
University of Zimbabwe’s law school, was showing
internet videos about the tumult sweeping across North
Africa to students and activists last Saturday, when
state security agents burst into his office.

The agents seized
laptop computers, DVD discs and a video projector before
arresting 45 people, including Gwisai, who runs the
Labor Law Center at the University of Zimbabwe. All 45
have been charged with treason—which can carry a
sentence of life imprisonment or death—for, in essence,
watching viral videos. Gwisai and five others were
brutally tortured during the next 72 hours, he testified
Thursday at an initial hearing. There were “assaults
all over the detainees’ bodies, under their feet and
buttocks through the use of broomsticks, metal rods,
pieces of timber, open palms and some blunt objects,”
The Zimbabwean newspaper reports, in an account of the
court proceedings.—Wired

is a Nigerian born 10 April 1957 in the northern Nigerian state of Kano into a wealthy Hausa-Muslim family. His mother Mariya Sanusi Dantata was the granddaughter of legendary Hausa businessman Alhassan Dantata, and his father Mohammed Dangote was Dantata's business associate.—wikipedia

Dangote’s interests do not lie solely in cement, and neither are they restricted to Nigeria. His business interests spans across Africa and sectors such as cement, oil and gas, flour, sugar and textiles. He has invested $4 billion to build a new cement facility in the Ivory Coast and is building a $115 million cement plant in Cameroon, plus owns plants in Zambia, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa. He has reiterated plans for this expansion to continue at an even greater pace, planning for Dangote Group to invest $7.5 billion in its expansion strategy over the next four years. . . .

He has invested $4 billion to build a new cement facility in the Ivory Coast and is building a $115 million cement plant in Cameroon, plus owns plants in Zambia, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa

Exordium --In the Name of Allah / The
Compassionate, the Merciful / Praise be to Allah,
the Lord of Creation / The Compassionate, the
Merciful, the Beneficent / King of the Last Judgment / You alone we worship /
To you alone we pray, Guide us / To the straight
path, the path of Those whom
you have favored, not of / Those who have incurred
your Wrath / Nor those who have gone astray /
Amen

King Leopold of
Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim
history, did not much care for his native land or his
subjects, all of which he dismissed as "small country, small
people." Even so, he searched the globe to find a colony for
Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other European powers
for overseas dominions in Africa and Asia would leave
nothing for himself or his people. When he eventually found
a suitable location in what would become the Belgian Congo,
later known as Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set
about establishing a rule of terror that would culminate in
the deaths of 4 to 8 million indigenous people, "a death
toll," Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust dimensions."

Congo’s tragedy the war the
world forgot—In Bukavu, a 29-year-old human rights
campaigner called Bertrand Bisimwa summarised his country's
situation for me with cruel concision. "Since the 19th
century, when the world looks at Congo it sees a pile of
riches with some black people inconveniently sitting on top
of them. They eradicate the Congolese people so they can
possess the mines and resources. They destroy us because we
are an inconvenience." As he speaks, I picture the raped
women with bullets burying through their intestines and try
to weigh them against the piles of blood-soaked electronic
goods sitting beneath my Christmas tree with their little
chunks of Congolese metal whirring inside. Bertrand smiles
and says, "Tell me— who are the savages? Us, or you?"—
Inndependent UK /
Kinshasa One Two

Malawi President Bingu Wa Mutharika has signed a bill into law that criminalises sex between two women. Malawi's penal code already prohibited sex between two men and the law was applied in the case of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza who were sentenced to 14 years in prison with hard labour for celebrating their love in what authorities called a traditional same-sex ceremony. Malawi also rejected pressure by the donor community to comply with human rights obligations.—AfricanActivist

Ivory Coast president urges calm after Gbagbo is arrested—11 April—Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara called for calm Monday after forces stormed the president's residence and arrested Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept the results of a presidential election last year plunged the West African nation into civil war.

"Finally, we have reached the dawn of a new era of hope," Ouattara said in a televised address. "We had hoped this transfer had been different, but we have to focus on today." He urged his countrymen to lay down their weapons and said he has asked the justice minister to start legal proceedings against Gbagbo, his wife and his colleagues. Gbagbo is being held at the Golf Hotel, the headquarters of both Ouattara and the United Nations. Fighting appeared to quickly end after Gbagbo's arrest, said Alain Le Roy, under-secretary-general of the United Nations' Department of Peacekeeping Operations. "To my knowledge, most of the fighting has stopped," he said, adding that "there are pockets of resistance here and there."—CNN

West African leaders threaten use of force against Gbagbo—25 December 2010—(CNN)—At an emergency meeting Friday, West African leaders warned they will not hesitate to use "legitimate force" if necessary to defuse an escalating crisis in Ivory Coast sparked by incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to cede power. "In the event that Mr. Gbagbo fails to heed this immutable demand of ECOWAS, the Community would be left with no alternative but to take other measures, including the use of legitimate force, to achieve the goals of the Ivorian people," said a statement issued Friday by the 15-member Economic Community of West African States.—CNN

China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids—by Thomas L. Friedman—5 February 2011—The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29, many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job, buy an apartment and get married. That is trouble. Add in rising food prices, and the diffusion of Twitter, Facebook and texting, which finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other, and you have a very powerful change engine. I have not been to Jordan for a while, but my ears are ringing today with complaints about corruption, frustration with the king and queen, and disgust at the enormous gaps between rich and poor.

King Abdullah, who sacked his cabinet last week and promised real reform and real political parties, has his work cut out for him. And given some of the blogs that my friends here have shared with me from the biggest local Web site, Ammonnews.net, the people are not going to settle for the same-old, same-old. They say so directly now, dropping the old pretense of signing antigovernment blog posts as “Mohammed living in Sweden.”—NYTimes / Egypt unrest / The people have won!

Guerilla warfare and
sniping, / Shun every open
fight; / But snipe their
flanks through the livelong day / And harry them
through the night. --Beleagured
Men

Government Drops Charges
Against Cheney,
Halliburton—13 December 2010

The Federal Government's
effort at prosecuting former
United States Vice President
Richard Bruce 'Dick' Cheney
and other officials of
Halliburton paid off,
following payment of huge
sums of money to the coffers
of Nigeria, as Nigeria has
reportedly agreed to drop
charges against Cheney and
Halliburton. The development
followed agreement reached
between Nigerian officials
in the negotiating team and
top officials of the United
States and Halliburton in a
meeting held in London,
weekend. At the meeting,
Halliburton agreed to pay
about N20 billion as
criminal penalty, while
promising to liaise with the
United States Government to
recover the outstanding $I32
million which is currently
frozen in Switzerland. It
was gathered that former
United States President,
George Bush, Snr and former
United States Secretary of
State, Mr. James Baker were
part of the deliberations
through conference calls.—AllAfrica

t
was two years
ago, at 4 a.m.
at her apartment
in Maryland,
that Peggielene
Bartels got the
news from West
Africa. A
relative called
from Ghana to
say that her
uncle, the king
of the fishing
village of Otuam,
had died. The
news didn't end
there. She was
also informed
that she had
been anointed
his successor:
King Peggy. . .
. Nana
Amuah-Afenyi VI
is Bartels' new
title, but she
is better known
as King Peggy.
This
straight-talking,
57-year-old is
the first woman
in her fishing
community of
7,000 people in
Ghana's Central
Region to be
anointed a king,
or "nana." She
now juggles two
lives — from the
palace in Otuam
and from a
modest condo
outside
Washington, D.C.
Since the 1970s,
Bartels, a
naturalized U.S.
citizen, has
been a secretary
at Ghana's
Embassy in
Washington where
she still spends
most of her
time, running
royal affairs
back home in
Otuam over the
phone and on
trips to Ghana.—NPR

Seldom is a
documentary so explicitly colourful.
Usually for whatever reason the
documentary has to focus on specific
topics and by force dismiss many related
issues. It is not so here. Within the
allotted time, the presenter masterfully
weaves all related issues around an
ancient Saga. Watch "Lagos Stories," a
documentary marking Nigerias' 50th
Independence Anniversary. To
commemorate Nigeria's 50th anniversary,
the BBC will air this three-part
documentary that captures people and
conversations around Nigeria. Embark on
an epic journey around Nigeria and
discover authentic Nigerian stories told
from the Nigerian perspective. "My
Country" has captured the heart and
spirit of the Nigerian people, engaging
them in eye-opening and down to earth
conversations about their unique
Nigerian experience. The documentary
features the stories of various
Nigerians—from ordinary citizens going
about their business to celebrities in
unusual but natural settings—capturing
discussions that range from the hard
hitting stories of the day to the every
day challenges of Nigerian life.

Chinua Achebe wins $300,000 Gish prize—By
Philip Nwosu—Monday, September 27, 2010—The
author of the epic novel,
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, has
emerged winner of the United States Dorothy and
Lillian Gish Prize. The Gish prize, which was
established in 1994 by the Dorothy and Lillian
Gish Prize Trust and administered by JPMorgan
Chase Bank as trustee, is given annually to “a
man or woman who has made an outstanding
contribution to the beauty of the world and to
mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”
The prize is worth $300,000. . . . Achebe’s
writings examine African politics and chronicle
the ways in which African culture and
civilization have survived in the post-colonial
world. Some of his acclaimed works include
A Man of the People (1966) and
Anthills of the Savannah(1988). [The
80-year-old author has founded a number of
magazines for African art, fiction and poetry.]
Achebe, who is paralyzed from the waist down due
to a 1990 car accident, is currently Professor
of Africana Studies at Brown University in
Providence, Rhode Island.—SunNewsOnline

Today in
history . . . Idi
Amin Dada, the military dictator and
President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, died
August 16, 2003, in Saudi Arabia, where he’d
been living in exile since 1979. Most are
likely most familiar with Forest Whitaker’s
interpretation of Amin, in the 2006 film,
The Last King of Scotland, for which
he earned an Academy Award.

But if I may
instead/also direct your attention to
director Barbet Schroeder’s 1974 documentary
on Amin, titled,
General Idi Amin Dada,
made while he was very much at the height of
his power. Schroeder was given unprecedented
access to the dictator, who was influential
in the making of the film, but it’s far from
propaganda material.

Basil
Davidson obituary—By Victoria Brittain—9 July
2010—Davidson [(9 November 1914 – 9 July
2010) a
British
historian, writer and
Africanist] was enthused early on by the end
of British colonialism and the prospects of pan-Africanism
in the 1960s, and he wrote copiously and with
warmth about newly independent
Ghana and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He went
to work for a year at the University of Accra in
1964. Later he threw himself into the reporting
of the African liberation wars in the Portuguese
colonies, particularly in Angola,
Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. .
. . In the 1980s, with most of the African
liberation wars now won—except for South
Africa's— Davidson turned much of his attention
to more theoretical questions about the future
of the nation state in Africa. He remained a
passionate advocate of pan-Africanism. In 1988
he made a long and dangerous journey into
Eritrea, writing a persuasive defence of the
nationalists' right to independence from
Ethiopia, and an equally eloquent attack on
the revolutionary leader Colonel Mengistu and
the regime that had overthrown Haile Selassie.
Guardian

Zuma abolishes six
traditional South Africa monarchies—A six-year
government study concluded that some had been
created by the country's former apartheid
administration to divide the people. President Jacob
Zuma said the move to halve the number of those
recognised would correct "the wrongs of the past".
Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and Xhosa King
Zwelonke Sigcau are among the seven who will remain
in place. The other six monarchies would end when
the incumbent ruler dies, Mr Zuma told reporters.
The ruling will save the country money, as each king
receives an annual subsidy . . . . Before South
Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, some of
the royals were appointed by the government despite
having few legitimate claims to the throne. . . .
"It was how those in charge divided and disunited
people” [Mr
Zuma]. BBC

Explores
the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and
activist Frantz Fanon who was born in Martinique,
educated in Paris and worked in Algeria. Examines
Fanon's theories of identity and race, and traces his
involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and
throughout the world.

Angélique Kidjo
is a Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter and
activist, noted for her diverse musical influences and
creative music videos. Kidjo was born in
Cotonou,
Benin. Her father is from the
Fon people of
Ouidah and her mother from the
Yoruba people. She grew up listening to Beninese
traditional music,
Miriam Makeba,
James Brown,
Otis Redding,
Jimi Hendrix,
Stevie Wonder, and
Santana. By the time she was six, Kidjo was performing
with her mother's theatre troupe, giving her an early
appreciation for traditional music and dance. She started
singing in her school band Les Sphinx and found success as a
teenager with her adaptation of
Miriam Makeba's "Les Trois Z" which played on national
radio. She recorded the album Pretty with the Cameroonian
producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. It featured
the songs Ninive, Gbe Agossi and a tribute to the singer
Bella Bellow, one of her role models. The success of the
album allowed her to tour all over West Africa.
Wikipedia

“This
name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You
all must realise that
[Nelson] Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There
were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died,
Mrs [Winnie] Mandela
said.
[Nelson] Mandeladid go to prison
and he went in there as a young revolutionary but look what came
out,' she told the London Evening Standard.
[Nelson] Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for
the blacks. Economically we are still on the outside. The
economy is very much 'white'. "It has a few token blacks, but so
many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded. .
. . 'I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace
Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they
went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of
his heart. . . . 'He had to. The times dictated it, the world
had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was
bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood. I had
kept it alive with every means at my disposal."
Mandela’s
Way

Mrs [Winnie] Mandela was married for 38 years - although
they were only together for five of these. She also criticised
the Truth and Reconciliation Committee - which she appeared
before in 1997 - and implicated her for "gross violations of
human rights. 'Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. .
. . What good does the truth do? How does it help to anyone to
know where and how their loved ones are killed or buried?"
DailyMail

Adebayo Ogunlesi (born 1953) is a
Nigerian businessman. A 1979 graduate of Harvard Law School and
Harvard Business School, he also studied at Oxford. He was in
charge of Global Investment Banking at Credit Suisse First
Boston[ before being promoted to chief client officer and
executive vice chairman.
Wikipedia

Will
Africa Let Sudan Off the Hook?—The expected
issuance of an arrest warrant for
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by
the International Criminal Court tomorrow
presents a stark choice for African leaders—are
they on the side of justice or on the side of
injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or
the oppressor? The choice is clear but the
answer so far from many African leaders has been
shameful.

Because the
victims in Sudan are African, African leaders
should be the staunchest supporters of efforts
to see perpetrators brought to account. Yet
rather than stand by those who have suffered in
Darfur, African leaders have so far rallied
behind the man responsible for turning that
corner of Africa into a graveyard.
NYTimes

Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Sudan’s Leader— PARIS —
Judges at the
International Criminal Court ordered the arrest Wednesday of
President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir of
Sudan for atrocities committed in Darfur, but Sudanese
officials swiftly retaliated, ordering Western aid groups that
provide for millions of people to shut down their operations and
leave. After months of deliberation, the judges charged Mr.
Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing
an “essential role” in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and
displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. But the
judges did not charge him with genocide, as the prosecutor had
requested.

In issuing the order, the
three judges put aside diplomatic requests for more time for
peace talks and fears that
the warrant would incite a violent backlash in Sudan, where
2.5 million Darfur residents have been chased from their homes
and 300,000 have died in a conflict pitting non-Arab rebel
groups against the Arab-dominated government and its allied
militias. NYTimes5 March 2009

Perhaps we’ve heard so little about
them because the crimes are so unspeakable, the evil so
profound. For years now, in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, marauding bands of soldiers and militias have
been waging a war of rape and destruction against
women.—Bob
Herbert

Hottentot Venusis the
story of Ssehura, a young Khoisan girl orphaned in
1700s South Africa. Ssehura is renamed Saartjie
(which means “little Sarah” in Dutch) by a Dutch
Afrikaner who becomes her master. As is Khoisan
custom, Sarah is groomed to be more sexually
desirable for marriage. Her buttocks are massaged
with special ointments to make them swell and her
genitalia are stretched to produce the legendary
“Hottentot apron,” exaggerated folds of skin. Thus,
Sarah is a physical curiosity and a sexual fetish to
her white master. He is persuaded by an Englishman
to send her to London where she becomes a sideshow
sensation. The English gentry is fascinated by her
exotic African ethnicity and sexually charged
presence making her stuff of legend and myth. Sarah
enters the world of circus freak shows and becomes a
popular exhibit. . The “Hottentot Venus,” as
she has become known, is the rage of Europe. Yet,
beyond the parade of curiosity seekers and perverts,
the very real loneliness of this young woman comes
through.CopperfieldReview

Guns, Butter, and
Obama—While the "official" 2009 U.S. military budget is
$516 billion, that figure bears little resemblance to what
this country actually spends.
According to CDI, if
one pulls together all the various threads that make up the
defense spending tapestry - including Home Security, secret
"black budget" items, military-related programs outside of
the Defense Department, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and such outlays as veterans' benefits - the figure is
around $862 billion for the current fiscal year. Johnson
says spending is closer to $1.1 trillion. Even
these figures are misleading, since it does not project
future costs. According to Nobel Prize winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz, when the economic and social costs of the
Iraq War are finally added up—including decades of treatment
for veterans disabled by traumatic brain injury and post
traumatic stress disorder—the final bill
could reach $5 trillion. . . . A
recent study by a Pentagon advisory group, the
Defense Business Board, says that current defense spending
is "not sustainable" and recommends scaling back or
eliminating some big-ticket weapon systems. . . . While
Obama
has pledged to stress diplomacy over warfare, he
has also promised to "maintain the most powerful military on
the planet" and to increase the armed forces by some 90,000
soldiers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that
will cost at least
$50 billionover
five years.
CommonDreams

What credibility is there in Geneva's all-white boycott?—What
do the US, Canada, ­Australia, New Zealand, the
Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy and Israel have in
common? They are all either European or European-settler
states. And they
all decided to boycott this week's UN ­conference
against racism in Geneva – even before Monday's
incendiary speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad which triggered a further white-flight
walkout by representatives of another 23 European
states. In international forums, it's almost
unprecedented to have such an ­undiluted racial divide
of whites-versus-the-rest. And for that to happen in a
global meeting called to combat racial hatred doesn't
exactly augur well for future international
understanding at a time when the worst economic crisis
since the war is ramping up racism and xenophobia across
the world. . . .The dispute was mainly about Israel and
western fears that the conference would be used, like
its torrid predecessor in Durban at the height of the
Palestinian intifada in 2001, to denounce the Jewish
state and attack the west over colonialism and the slave
trade. Guardian

Thurgood Marshall became a living icon of civil rights when
he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme
Court in 1954. Six years later, he was at a crossroads. A
rising generation of activists were making sit-ins and
demonstrations rather than lawsuits the hallmark of the
civil rights movement. What role, he wondered, could he now
play?

When in 1960 Kenyan independence leaders asked him to
help write their constitution, Marshall threw himself into
their cause. Here was a new arena in which law might serve
as the tool with which to forge a just society. In
Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey
(2008) Mary
Dudziak recounts with poignancy and power the untold story
of Marshall's journey to Africa

This
video chronicles the life and times of the
noted African-American historian, scholar
and Pan-African activist John Henrik Clarke
(1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke
himself and an overview of 5,000 years of
African history, the film offers a
provocative look at the past through the
eyes of a leading proponent of an
Afrocentric view of history.

From ancient
Egypt and Africa’s other great empires,
Clarke moves through Mediterranean
borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade,
European colonization, the development of
the Pan-African movement, and present-day
African-American history.

Genocide, slavery, rape,
and colorism are wrong.—It
is now less than a month
since I was appointed
National Chairwoman of
the United States branch
of South Sudan's
Sudanese Sensitization
Peace Project (the SSPP).
This was a most ironic
appointment considering
the fact that I am a
half-Arab Northerner,
originally born Muslim,
a "traitor" to the
North. I did spy work
for the SPLA (South),
and now, in my job
rounding up celebrities
and politicians to take
a stance on behalf of
Darfur and the 2011
secession of South
Sudan, I find myself
greatly pained that
absolutely none of the
African Presidents of
the African Union are
doing what they should
to challenge and
confront President
Bashir's regime in
Khartoum, even as they
acknowledge that he, and
in full disclosure, my
former boyfriend, Hasan
al Turabi, are
responsible for carrying
out genocide. Millions
of blacks around the
world—whether their
worlds be Johannesburg,
Harlem, Dakar, London or
Los Angeles—love to
evoke the names "Nubia"
and "Cush" to the point
of overkill, yet as we
get high linking
ourselves to some
glorious ancient past,
we place little stock in
fixing our present or
constructing our future.Kola
BoofNuba-Darfur-South
Sudan Table

Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley—Within
the most remote part of Ethiopia, centuries from
modernity, Hans Sylvester photographed for six
years tribes where men, women, children and
elders are true geniuses of ancestral art. At
their feet the Omo River across a triangle of
Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya, the grand valley of
the Rift that is slowly separating Africa. It
is a volcanic region providing an immense
palette of pigments, ocher-red, white kaolin,
copper-green, luminous yellow and ash-grey. They
are painting geniuses and their six feet tall
bodies are an immense canvas. The strength of
their art can be defined in three words: their
fingers, speed, and freedom. They draw with
their open hands, their nails and fingertips,
sometimes with a wooden stick, a reed, a smashed
stalk. They draw with swift, rapid and
spontaneous gestures beyond childlikeness, these
essential movements that great contemporary
masters are looking for when they have learned a
lot and are trying to forget it all. The Omo
merely want to decorate themselves, to seduce,
be beautiful, have fun and endless pleasure.
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa/ Online
slideshow

A group of
African-Peruvian children . . . a Saturday morning in a
recreation center just outside of Lima, Peru in late May
or early June 2008. Photos
of Global African
Presence

I
told them about their African origins and a little about
Africans in different parts of the world. They liked
the talk and they answered my questions and talked to
me. They all told me of the discrimination that they
face everyday of their lives. They told me about the
racist taunting that they receive at school and in their
neighborhoods. They told me the racist names that other
children call them. I asked them about their dreams for
life. One of them told me that he wanted to be a
doctor. One told me that she really wanted to travel.
Another told me he really wanted to visit Africa. It
was all so touching. And then I asked them if they
regretted being African; if they wished that they were
not Black? One of them quickly responded in proud,
defiant, and confident terms that for him it was quite
the contrary. This young African-Peruvian man-child
told me that he thought that being Black was a gift from
God. The others quickly concurred. Hearing this, I
guess that you could say for me that the trip to Peru
was complete.

Sudanese Moving North
to Israel—Excessively harsh socio-economic
conditions and racist attitudes in Egypt seem to be the
main reason why Sudanese refugees want to relocate to
Israel. Of the Sudanese refugees now resident in Israel
71 per cent report verbal and physical abuse as the main
reason for their fleeing Egypt. Some 86 per cent had
refugee status with the UNHCR in Egypt, though those
crossing the border spent an average of six months in
detention upon arrival in Israel. Others are subject to
indefinite detention. Sudan is considered an enemy state
by the Israelis and Sudanese refugees are viewed as
suspect. This is especially the case with Muslim
Sudanese from Darfur and northern Sudan. Southern
Sudanese are culturally more attuned to Israeli culture,
and Israelis warm up to them. "The Israelis are
suspicious of us because we are Muslim," complained a
Sudanese originally from Darfur. . . .

There are an
estimated 400,000 Sudanese refugees in Kenya, 400,000 in
Chad and 100,000 in Egypt. Yet on the UN human
development index, Israel stands at 23, Egypt at 111 and
Kenya at 152. Chad is among the world's poorest and
least developed nations and Sudan is not far behind.
–Gamal Nkrumah.
Sudanese refugees fleeing Egypt for Israel

In South Africa, Chinese is
the New Black—A high court in South
Africa
ruled on Wednesday that Chinese-South Africans will be
reclassified as “black,” a term that includes black Africans,
Indians and others who were subject to discrimination under
apartheid. As a result of this ruling, ethnically Chinese citizens
will be able to benefit from government affirmative action policies
aimed at undoing the effects of apartheid. In 2006, the Chinese
Association of South Africa sued the government, claiming that its
members were being discriminated against because they were being
treated as whites and thus failed to qualify for business contracts
and job promotions reserved for victims of apartheid. The
association successfully argued that, since Chinese-South Africans
had been treated unequally under apartheid, they should be
reclassified in order to redress wrongs of the past. WSJ News

Jacob Zuma, President of the African National Congress, with Hu
Jintao in Beijing last week (Reuters)

The Land
Question in South Africa:
The Challenge of
Transformation and
Redistribution—The
editors, Lungisile Ntsebeza
and Ruth Hall, have brought
together a useful and
interesting collection of
papers presented at a 2004
conference in Cape Town
about the land question in
South Africa, a central and
still highly controversial
problem, as the divergent
views within this book
demonstrate. Readers of this
volume will get both a
sampling of some of the main
analytical approaches to the
land question as well as a
sense of the direction in
which the different
positions lead, especially
concerning the impasse of
large-scale land
redistribution and
transformation of the rural
economy in South Africa. . .
. The content and scope of
the discussion in this book
as a whole manages for the
most part to get beyond the
state-market continuum that
tends to dominate much of
the debate today. The
editors' cautionary note
about the dangers of a
technicist approach evident
at the 2005 National Land
Summit is well taken, and
they, along with several
authors, stress that the
resolution of the land
question is essentially a
political process.
H-Net Reviews

Apartheid dead but
racism endures—Under
apartheid, black education was
purposely substandard and certain
skilled jobs, notably in big
corporations such as the railroad,
were reserved for whites. Now white
South Africans complain about
government affirmative action
programs that work against them. Yet
despite these programs and a booming
economy, more blacks are out of work
than under white rule. Government
statistics show that 10 percent of
black households are in the top
income bracket compared with 65
percent of white households. Blacks
are 85 percent of the 48 million
population. President Thabo Mbeki
hoped business friendly policies
would create a trickle-down effect,
but they didn't, and many blacks
criticize Mbeki for leaving the
reins of the economy in white hands.
In 2004, in its most recent
available figures, the Department of
Trade and Industry said black
ownership of businesses had gone
from zero to 10 percent and blacks
occupied 15 percent of skilled
positions. Whites-only suburbs and
restaurants have been desegregated,
but few blacks can afford their
prices. Most still live in black
townships and work for whites as
laborers, farm hands or domestic
workers. Oakley-Smith says she can
list scores of racist incidents —
segregated toilets in big companies,
rude and racist remarks by white
supervisors in the mines, whites
posting pictures of monkeys under
the names of black supervisors.—Yahoo News

The problem of the Africans in the
21st century is the problem of poverty, underdevelopment, and
marginalisation. --Thabo
Mbeki, 2003

If way to the better there be, it
exacts a full look at the worst. --Thomas Hardy

“Amandla": A new voice from within
the South African Left—A
very unusual and exciting project
was launched in South Africa this
past June. Amandla
www.amandla.org.za ), an
on-line and hard-copy journal,
emerged from within overlapping
sections of the South African Left.
At a point when the radical Left
internationally desperately needs
innovative theory,
Amandla appeared on the scene as
a means for the summation of the
South African experience and a
mechanism for badly needed debate
within that significant movement. .
. .Amandla
is important for those of us in the
USA both for giving us insight into
the thinking within South Africa, as
well as for, hopefully, inspiring us
to do likewise in the USA. In terms
of giving us insight into South
Africa, the South African Left,
regardless of any problems it faces,
remains among the most vibrant on
the planet. It is confronting issues
of national and regional economic
development in the face of
imperialism, as well as attempting
to address the challenge of building
a pro-socialist movement in a
post-liberation society. The latter
is noteworthy for many reasons, not
the least being that the South
African Left often finds itself up
against former comrades, individuals
who know all the right words and
phrases of the Left, but who use
them to advance a different set of
class interests.
Bill Fletcher.
Zmag

An
individual has to take a decision . . . take stock of himself
and act—"The
writer is first and foremost a citizen and the writer's
responsibility is not different from that of a citizen. . . .
People sometimes take a snobbish attitude, saying we cannot
engage on this level because it's not pure enough for us. . . .
On all levels humanity is involved. And wherever humanity is
involved, that's my constituency.”—Wole
Soyinka,
the 1986 Nobel literature prize winner—the first black writer to
receive the award.

Africa—Where the Next US Oil Wars Will
Be—Most
oil from Saudi Arabia and the Middle
East winds up in Europe, Japan, China or
India. Increasingly it's African oil
that keeps the US running. "West Africa
alone sits atop 15% of the world's oil,
and by 2015 is projected to supply a up
to a quarter of US domestic
consumption." A foretaste of American
plans for African people and resources
in the new century can be seen in
Eastern Nigeria. US and multinational
oil companies like
Shell, BP, and Chevron, which once
named a
tanker after its board member
Condoleezza Rice, have ruthlessly
plundered the Niger delta for a
generation. Where once there were poor
but self-sufficient people with rich
farmland and fisheries, there is now an
unfolding ecological collapse of
horrifying dimensions in which the land,
air and water are increasingly unable to
sustain human life, but the region's
people have no place else to go. Twenty
percent of Nigerian children die before
the age of 5, according to the World
Bank. Hundreds of billions of dollars
worth of oil have been extracted from
the Niger Delta, according to
Amnesty International in 2005. But
its inhabitants “...remain among the
most deprived oil communities in the
world - 70 per cent live on less than
US$1 a day. In spite of its windfall
gains, as global oil prices have more
than doubled in the last two years, the
Nigerian government has failed to
provide services, infrastructure or jobs
in the region."
Black Agenda Report

The
Invisible War
Democratic Republic of Congo—It’s the
deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5
million people have died in the past decade, yet it goes
virtually unnoticed and unreported in the United States.
The conflict is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in
Central Africa. At its heart are the natural resources
found in Congo and multinational corporations that
extract them. The prospects for peace have slightly
improved: A peace accord was just signed in Congo’s
eastern Kivu provinces. But without a comprehensive
truth and reconciliation process for the entire country
and a renegotiation of all mining contracts, the
suffering will undoubtedly continue. In its latest Congo
mortality report, the International Rescue Committee
found that a stunning 5.4 million “excess deaths” have
occurred in Congo since 1998. These are deaths beyond
those that would normally occur. In other words, a loss
of life on the scale of Sept. 11 occurring every two
days, in a country whose population is one-sixth our
own. Truthdig

The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan
Africa has been experiencing phenomenal
population growth since the beginning of the
XXth Century, following several centuries of
population stagnation attributable to the slave
trade and colonization. The region's population
in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to
770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations
projections, published in March 2007, envisaged
a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being
reached between the present and 2050. . . .And
although two-thirds of its population still live
in rural areas, massive migration to the towns
and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960,
just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of
over one million, Africa now has about 40 of
them. Science Daily

The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan
Africa has been experiencing phenomenal
population growth since the beginning of the
XXth Century, following several centuries of
population stagnation attributable to the slave
trade and colonization. The region's population
in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to
770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations
projections, published in March 2007, envisaged
a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being
reached between the present and 2050. . . .And
although two-thirds of its population still live
in rural areas, massive migration to the towns
and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960,
just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of
over one million, Africa now has about 40 of
them. Science Daily

George W Bush's
six-day tour of Africa—Johnson-Sirleaf
is the ideal African leader
as far as the Bush
administration is concerned.
Other preferred African
leaders are Tanzanian
president, Ghanaian
President John Jufour and,
of course, Beninois
President Boni Yaye. The
momentum behind the
Americans in Africa is not
what it was during the Cold
War era. The war on terror,
Africa's potential as a
major oil supplier to the US
(currently 16 per cent of US
oil imports), and AFRICOM
are the superpower's
priorities in Africa today.
The continent is no longer
enemy turf, not even with
Chinese competition for
hydrocarbons and raw
materials. There is also
progress on the ground for
champions of what is
mistakenly called free
trade, and there are no
obvious socialists to be
found. The botched handling
of Africa's underdevelopment
concerns is America's
opportunity on the
continent. Bush made smarmy
speeches of little substance
and even less consequence.
Few understood what he was
talking about, but most
pretended that they did.
Weekly Aahram

The End
of An African Nightmare—Monrovia
was in chaos as rebel groups shelled the
city in an effort to oust Taylor. By
that point the 14-year civil war had
killed 270,000 people – an astonishing
one out of every twelve Liberians – and
forced another 250,000 to become
refugees. The economy had completely
collapsed, with GDP falling by more than
90 percent between 1989 and 1996, one of
the largest collapses ever recorded
anywhere in the world. Children as young
as ten had become pawns in the violence,
with warlords abducting them from their
families, stuffing them with drugs and
arming them with AK-47s (for a
first-hand account from a former child
soldier in neighboring Sierra Leone,
read the rivetingA Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy
Soldier by Ishmael Beah). But
United Nations peacekeepers put an end
to the conflict in 2003. Taylor first
went into exile in Nigeria and is now in
The Hague facing war crimes charges for
atrocities committed in Sierra Leone.
The U.N. and thousands of brave
Liberians organized elections in late
2005 which resulted in President
Sirleaf’s election. And she is
resolutely moving the country forward by
rebuilding institutions, restoring basic
services, reviving the economy and
beginning to heal the deep wounds of war.—Steve
Radelet NYTimes Blog

Cape Verde—We are pleased with
what has been achieved, but our aspirations for a higher
level of development are much greater, regardless of the
opinion the rest of the world may have of us. At
independence we had an illiteracy rate of nearly 70
percent, but today it is 24 percent. Life expectancy
stood at 50 years, and now it is between 75 and 77
years. The infant mortality rate has fallen sharply and
is now one of the lowest in Africa. The government (of
the ruling African Party for the Independence of Cape
Verde, PAICV) regards it as essential to respond to the
expectations of Cape Verdeans by increasing the levels
of education, training, health, safety and stability. In
a word, more development is needed. While our people
recognise the progress already made, they are not
satisfied yet, and it is the dissatisfaction of Cape
Verdeans and of the government itself that will propel
us further.
Cape Verde Foreign Minister Víctor Barbosa Borges

Films Out of Africa—[The]
Festival of Pan African Cinema in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. . .
. [found] nearly 200 films good enough to show to audiences of
international film buyers and ordinary movie lovers. At FESPACO,
“virtually all the films come from directors holding African
passports,” according to an article in the Toronto Star.
The top prize at FESPACO went to a film about child soldiers in
Sierra Leone. So, it’s not as if the African directors are just
turning a blind eye to what’s really going on. But African life
does not equal African pain. In just the past ten years, the
Nigerian film industry has become the third largest movie
economy in the world, generating close to $300 million dollars a
year in revenue, telling African stories to African people. Some
of them, to be sure, are about war and torture and rape and
disease. But more of them are about families and careers that
seem to be going off track in one way or another. They are about
dreams people had as children and how they did or did not come
true. They are about failed romances. Sin and salvation. They
are about life. But you will not find these films in any
mainstream film festival in the United States. What you will
find, however, are not one but two films about these films made
by white American filmmakers, both of whom live in New England.
Jacquie Jones
“what does it mean when white americans pronounce evil on
africans? and why is it happening so much these days? “EbonyJet

US Aircraft and Elite Navy SEALs
Defeat Three Somalis in a
Lifeboat—What a weekend for
American foreign policy! The
United States Navy, backed up by
warships from 20 other nations,
knocked off three Somali guys
crouching with rifles in a
lifeboat tied by a rope to a
U.S. destroyer. To hear the U.S.
corporate media tell it, the
Americans had won a
huge victory over the forces
of evil. The sole surviving
Somali was in custody—a
16-year-old who essentially gave
himself up, earlier, after being
hurt in a scuffle with the
American cargo ship captain who
is now celebrated as a hero of
the seven seas and defender of
United States national honor.
There is something obscene about
a superpower whose media and
population find great
satisfaction, and some sick form
of national catharsis, every
time they manage to overcome a
weak and desperate opponent. . .
. An estimated $300 million
worth of Somali sea life is
pirated by foreigners every
year.
BlackAgendaReport
Pirate Suspect Charged as Adult
in New York

Igbos in Virginia
Enslaved Igbo and the Foundation of Afro-Virginia Slave Culture and
Society A review
by Gloria Chuku

From Jo'Burg to Jozi:South Africa's most
prolific mass murderer takes another sip of
coffee, eases back in his chair and pauses when
asked if it is true he shot more than 100 black
people. "I can't argue with that," says Louis
van Schoor. "I never kept count." "Apartheid
killer finds religion but not remorse. Case of
freed racist murderer highlights refusal of
whites to take responsibility for the past." By
Rory Carroll in East London. The Guardian

Theodore
Allen begins Volume 1 by reviewing the many
histories of American racism written in the 20th
century. Dividing the arguments into the
psycho-cultural school and the socio-economic school
of thought, he teases out the strengths and flaws of
their scholarship. Allen then posits racial
oppression as a deliberate ruling-class decision
(constantly undergoing renewal) to prevent
property-less European Americans from allying
themselves with enslaved and free African Americans
by offering the European Americans privileges based
on white skin. His solution is to study "racism"
rather than "race" because studies of race always
devolve onto discussions of the body--onto those who
are perceived to possess race--and thus avoids the
real issue. . . . It is a strong, well researched,
tightly argued work. He proves that the "white race"
can be "gotten on a technicality" because it was and
is indeed an invented rather than a natural
category.Amazon Reviewer

Garifuna community in Columbia: “We are pure Africans”—
150 million people of African descent live in Latin America
and account for about one third of the total population.
They reside mainly in rural areas, which are
characterised by poor infrastructure, few schools and health
facilities, low income and high unemployment. Afro
descendants – as they are self-defined, account for 40
per cent of the poorest people in the region. Studies
carried out by the Inter American Development Bank in 2001
found that in Brazil, the allocation of school places was
determined by skin colour, which resulted in a large
number of Afro descendants being denied access to education.
Brazil has the largest number of Afro descendants in the
whole of Latin America, which is estimated at 150 million –
20 million less than Nigeria, the most populous
country on the African continent. (2006 Census). In
Colombia, 98 per cent of the black population are
without basic public utilities, compared with just 6 per
cent of whites. These examples are representative of the
experiences of Afro descendants throughout Latin America.
Development initiatives funded by NGOs have little impact
because the NGOs rarely work directly with Afro descendant
organisations but through the same state channels who are
instituting economic oppression and discrimination in the
first place.Deborah
Gabriel.
Afro descendants in Latin America gearing up for
reparations. Black Britain